Job-Safety Unit Closing 7 Offices

The federal agency that studies occupational health and safety is closing seven of its 10 regional offices, prompting protests Monday from labor unions and two Democratic congressmen.

“This is just one more step in the open, blatant attack of the Reagan Administration on organized labor,” Rep. Major R. Owens of New York said of the decision to close offices of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

NIOSH, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control, conducts research into hazards in the workplace, acting on requests from unions, individual workers and management.

Unlike the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, it does not take action against employers, although it sometimes refers cases to OSHA.

NIOSH spokesman Don Berreth confirmed Monday that the agency will close regional offices in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle, effective Oct. 1. The closures will leave NIOSH with regional offices in Boston, Denver and Atlanta, plus its headquarters in Cincinnati.

At a small demonstration Monday outside the federal building in Manhattan, NIOSH workers joined Owens, Rep. Ted Weiss (D-N.Y.) and several union officials in protesting the closure of the New York office.

Weiss charged that the decision flies “directly in the face” of a congressional mandate not to cut personnel in the area of occupational safety and health.

Spokesmen for the state AFL-CIO, the Transport Workers Union and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health said the office closings would deprive workers of ready access to NIOSH research.